Social media users, who are most comfortable in their mother tongue, often feel alienated on English-language platforms, say experts (GETTYIMAGES)

With elections coming up on the horizon, politicians in the state — and across the country — are furiously engaging with voters on regional social media platforms.

When Allwin Agnel, an MBA from Wharton, and Sandeep Kalidindi, a computer science grad from MIT, launched the Sion based Oheyo (originally Prepathon) in 2015, its primary focus, aided by a Video Q & A feature, was to connect students with experts across fields.

Over time, though, it attracted a number of people who were seeking an audience: top dieticians, spiritual gurus, and, of late, political parties. Nearly every major political party in the state — and elsewhere — has its own channel on Oheyo, on which their leaders take questions from users in their native languages. Last month, the NCP’s Surpiya Sule reached out to Oheyo users to find out more about issues they wanted her to raise in Parliament; then there’s MP Poonam Mahajan pointing out how Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the BJP’s youth wing, is different from other organisations of its kind; and good old Sambit Patra, one of the BJP’s official spokespersons, is on Oheyo as well.

As far as the number of users on it go, Oheyo is nowhere in the same league as Facebook or Twitter, but it is part of a new generation of vernacular social media platforms that are set to be the new battlegrounds for political parties ahead of the general elections. Over the last several months, flanks have been opened up on Indian language content apps such as ShareChat, and video-friendly applications such as Helo, Samosa and Snapchat. The target audience is the young voter who prefers sharper and shorter video content, rather than posts and messages, in their mother tongue.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi, state chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, former Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh and youth leaders such as Kanhaiya Kumar are among those who have a presence on some of the these platforms. And, not without reason. A 2017 study by KPMG and Google has predicted that by 2021, there will be 536 million Indian-language speakers online in the country, far outstripping the projected 199 million English speakers. This mostly reflects the country’s language demographics, with just around 10 percent of 1.3 billion Indians speaking English, but with relative levels of fluency.

City-based social media consultant Ketan Joshi, who handles accounts of several political functionaries in the city, says that social media users, who are most comfortable in their mother tongue, often feel alienated on mainstream platforms. “It’s quite obvious that a Facebook or a Twitter’s primary audience is English-speaking. So, vernacular language speakers are a little uncomfortable. Regional language social media platforms, just like WhatsApp groups, cater more to a Tier II or Tier III audiences. It’s just like newspapers or news on television. The local languages still command the TRPs and readership,” says Joshi.

Clockwise from top left: ShareChat’s founders Sachdeva, Ahsan and Singh; A Snapchat ‘story’ posted by Sanjay Nirupam of the Mumbai Congress; Regional language apps were used extensively during the Telangana assembly elections

The biggest of the regional language social platforms is ShareChat. The three-year-old Bangalore-based firm, founded by IIT alumni Ankush Sachdeva, Farid Ahsan and Bhanu Singh, was valued at $460 million in September last year, and is rated as the country’s fastest growing local language social media platform. Its user base — about 35 million, according to the company — comprises largely of people between 18 and 25, most of whom hail from small cities across the country. Baban Harne, a farmer in Shahpur, is among them. Harne uses ShareChat for updates on not just the political scenario, but also farmers’ issues and entertainment. “The best part is that it’s all in Marathi, and we can share the posts on WhatsApp. Since elections are around the corner, a lot of political content is being shared. We get lots of buzz on the Ram temple issue, or Rafale. But, more importantly, there are issues that directly affect me, such as water shortage in Shahpur, potential candidates from the area, and their performance too. That is very relevant to me,” says Harne.

ShareChat, which has 25 genres of content, blends the features of Facebook and WhatsApp and allows users to post content both on the platform and also send them directly to contacts on WhatsApp. Its top three languages in terms of users and posts are Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. Sachdeva, the company’s CEO, says that ShareChat is not just a friends or news network. “It is built for content consumption and for users to interact with people who share similar interests. We understand the pulse of our audience across the 14 languages we currently function in,” he says.

Over the last year, the number of political leaders on their platform has increased, says Berges Y Malu, head of public policy at the company, and that includes MLAs, MPs, state leaders, and Union ministers, including Fadnavis and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Earlier this week, Fadnavis connected with his followers on the app with the following post: “Shauraya dina nimmite Bhima-Koregaon stambhala manvandana (Salutations to the Bhima-Koregaon victory pillar on the occasion of Victory Day).”

“Our core focus is on regional language users who are early adopters of the internet… and these are potential users who will be voting in the upcoming elections. Political parties have understood our USP and we are not surprised that they are keen to join the platform and woo voters,” says Malu. According to social media experts, the platform was used extensively during the Telangana assembly elections in December last year.

Both the Congress and the BJP are launching campaigns to woo firsttime voters across the country. Apart from Instagram, which is commonly used by political parties, Snapchat, which is also equally popular among the youth, has emerged as a go-to tool to target younger audiences.

Ketan Joshi says that with images and video being the prime focus of social media campaigns, these networks have become the new digital flex boards. “These typically include propaganda content. Since attention spans are reducing, content has to be sharp and crisp, and at the same time funny and witty,” he says. Hiren Joshi, who heads the Congress social media cell in the city, says that it is now looking at expanding the party’s video content on social media and reach out to regional language audiences.

“The stress was on English all the way right since 2014. But now things are changing. There is more connect when you talk to voters in their own language,” says Hiren Joshi.

Members of the Mumbai Congress’ social media team in their war-room (PHOTO BY SACHIN HARLAKAR)

Mumbai Congress president Sanjay Nirupam has already debuted on Snapchat and his engagement with users on the app — often in Hindi — has seen a drastic increase in the last few months. In the last ten days, Nirupam has spoken about the Rafale deal, the AgustaWestland controversy, and the sudden hike in electricity prices in the city on the app. Nirupam posts at least three ‘stories’ every day.

Devang Dave, the BJYM’s national convenor for Information Technology (IT), says that besides Oheyo, the party is highly active on Snapchat and has a considerable following. “We have got a good response on Oheyo. Video replies and presence on apps such as Oheyo and Snapchat make the interaction more personal and impactful,” says Dave.

Other regional language social — and meme- and video-friendly — apps that are increasingly on the radar of politicians include Helo and Samosa. Helo, which is owned by Chinese tech behemoth ByteDance, is similar to ShareChat in many ways, and claims to have over 25 million users nationwide. Fire the app up, and on the news section, you are greeted with posts by various users on, among other issues, the Ram Mandir controversy and the fight within the CBI. Helo and Samosa were buzzing during the recent assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Telangana, say political observers. Political parties used the apps to share short clips of top leaders, and memes, which highlighted announcements, and freebies were aimed at specific audiences on both apps. Shyamanga Barooah, who heads content operations at Helo, says that it sees most traction in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Gujarati. The Mumbai Congress has just opened its account on Helo, and Hiren Joshi claims it’s already getting a lot of traction.

While many of the new apps allow posts to be shared on WhatsApp, the popular messaging application, too, is facing competition as far as usage by political parties is concerned. Many party activists now use Telegram to communicate internally and with voters. A senior BJP functionary says that as the elections appear on the horizon, using these next-generation social media tools, the party’s ‘cyber warriors’ will carry forward the development work done by the Narendra Modi government to the grassroots.

Hiren Joshi says that Telegram is now the new tool for internal communications and reaching out to core voters. “No doubt WhatsApp is still the biggest platform but Telegram allows us to share heavy photos and videos as there is no limit on file size. So we are using it for internal communications. At the same time, WhatsApp is so common that many people don’t even read their messages anymore. So we are building Telegram groups for core workers and voters for now. Once they get the content, they forward it on WhatsApp groups,” Joshi says. A senior functionary from Maharashtra, who did not want to be identified, told Mirror that the BJP is also planning to get cracking on question-and-answer platform Quora. The party is identifying workers with a good understanding of its ideology and economic policy to respond to the questions posted on Quora.

Like Oheyo, the other apps lag behind Facebook and Twitter when it comes to number of users — Facebook has around 270 million users in India, while Twitter has about 33 million — but they are still important. (To put things in perspective, Fadnavis has about 19,000 followers on ShareChat, while about 4,500 people follow Rahul Gandhi.)

“Parties will continue to opt for a WhatsApp-first and Facebook-next campaign strategy given the respective reach of these two platforms. There is no doubt that these two, along with Twitter, will get you maximum traction, but at the same time platforms like ShareChat are becoming critical for content testing and broadcast. If you want to reach the common man, then regional languages is the way forward. Similarly, if you want to reach out to the new-age voter, then you have to SnapChat,” says Ketan Joshi.

As these new apps become popular, they, too, are facing the threat of fake news and hate speech, but they claim the fightback has already started.

“We have a zero tolerance policy against such content. Our moderators actively work to take down content that does not meet our community guidelines. ShareChat has partnered with an agency to ensure that users are made aware that certain content may be untrue, and to fact-check content that users may report to be untrue,” says Malu. On its part, Helo has tied up with fact-checking portal AltNews.

Cyber expert Ritesh Bhatia says that despite all the action in the social media space, each social networking platform has its own USP. And Bhatia says all of them will only help spread a political narrative or debate. “When it’s about going viral, it’s all about WhatsApp, since it’s the most pervasive and has the highest penetration. Twitter, on the other hand, is for setting the agenda. You can’t use Twitter to woo voters, because they are not on Twitter,” he says.

The Congress’ Hiren Joshi says that, as far as political parties go, the thrust is on regional languages. “We are soon launching a Mumbai Congress Facebook page in Urdu. Non-English groups on Facebook and WhatsApp are very important for us because that’s where our voter is,” Hiren says.

Meanwhile, Varun Sardesai, Yuva Sena secretary who handles the Sena’s social media, says that the party’s social media strategy has always been Marathicentric. “We have always had a Marathi language-driven campaign. In fact, all our posts are always in Marathi first and then in English. Even on Twitter we have a Marathi-first policy.”

The Congress and the BJP are active on ShareChat, and NCP’s Supriya Sule takes questions on Oheyo

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